Limits of Imagination Transformed into Limits of Power
By Con George-Kotzabasis
Steve Clemons and Ben Katcher are using the ‘shamanistic’ art, the art of a conjurer, to turn the limits of imagination into “the limits of American power.” The “aborted attempt” of the Obama administration to “persuade the Israelis to enact a “settlement freeze”, has nothing to do with US power limits but with lack of imagination and political insight on the part of Obama and the State Department not to foresee the political implausibility of trying to impose such a doltish demand on the Netanyahu government. It’s a dismal failure of policy and not a limit of American power as Clemons and Levy in their conjurers’ role aver.
As for Daniel Levy’s ”asymmetries of power,” WigWag’s post is instructive and unassailable in its historical logic. All defeated nations in wars were due to asymmetries of power.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Finger of Obama Forced to “Press the High-Fear-Button”
By Con George-Kotzabasis
Ben Katcher is the court jester of The Washington Note (TWN) followed by a long thread of other TWN jesters, from Norheim to Carrol. While all the late, and belated, actions of Obama emanate from an unabated fear which forces him to “press the high-fear-button,” closing his embassy in Yemen out of fear of a terrorist attack, deploying U.S. Special Forces in the country fearing that the latter would become a training terrorist base that would threaten the Western world, according to the latest statement of his Secretary of State, and the new rules prompted by the fear of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack that would involve 14 nations undergoing extra screening in airports, Katcher claims, that Obama refuses to “use fear for his personal political advantage,” as if by protecting--even if Obama doesn’t take these harsh measures out of personal belief but out of political expediency-- like Bush, America from the real fear of a terrorist attack, would not also be for Obama’s personal political advantage.
By Con George-Kotzabasis
Ben Katcher is the court jester of The Washington Note (TWN) followed by a long thread of other TWN jesters, from Norheim to Carrol. While all the late, and belated, actions of Obama emanate from an unabated fear which forces him to “press the high-fear-button,” closing his embassy in Yemen out of fear of a terrorist attack, deploying U.S. Special Forces in the country fearing that the latter would become a training terrorist base that would threaten the Western world, according to the latest statement of his Secretary of State, and the new rules prompted by the fear of the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack that would involve 14 nations undergoing extra screening in airports, Katcher claims, that Obama refuses to “use fear for his personal political advantage,” as if by protecting--even if Obama doesn’t take these harsh measures out of personal belief but out of political expediency-- like Bush, America from the real fear of a terrorist attack, would not also be for Obama’s personal political advantage.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Í'm republishing this article hoping the readers of this blog will find it to be of some interest.
THE FEAR GAME OUR LATEST SENSATION
Ross Gittins - The Age November 16 2005
A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis
Ross Gittins with his piece in The Age has reached the dismal lows of his training as an economist. He digs, typically of his profession, and brings up statistics to make his “game” against the fear of terror. Like as if, the actions of fanatic terror could be gauged and explained by statistics.
He must have been temporarily impaired by a bout of aphasia when he wrote his article. Statistics are good in studying and comparing the normal and ordinary conduct of human or animal behavior, not the abnormal skewed behavior of either of the latter. Millenarian fanatic terror and the fear it produces upon its victims, does not fall under the category of normal behavior. Nor is it a “passing” sensation, as he claims. It’s an everlasting feeling that will not go away until its threat is considerably diminished, if not eradicated.
Moreover, one cannot quantify - as apparently Gittins attempts to do - the extent and volume of the threat by any scientific means, and least of all by statistics. The extent of the danger of global terror can only be measured by students of history who have distilled their knowledge from the sublime pages of Herodotus, the great Edward Gibbon, and Samuel Huntington, not to mention others for the lack of space, and by the power of imagination, attributes that are obviously missing from Gittins. Doesn’t he perceive or realize, that the present terrorist “mole-hill” threat could give birth to a mountain full of “mushrooms”? Doesn’t he perceive the exponential increase in casualties by a possible nuclear attack, once these zealots possessed nuclear weapons, which they would use with glee against the decadent West? Doesn’t he realize, that this is an existential struggle for Western civilization? And finally, does he seriously believe, that the Bush administration went to war, with all the uncertainties wars are replete with, and the great loss of lives and resources, for the purpose of saving a lesser number of American lives than those falling off from a ladder?
In the annals of Australian journalism, Ross Gittins’article will be forever pilloried for its analytical flippancy and intellectual banality.
THE FEAR GAME OUR LATEST SENSATION
Ross Gittins - The Age November 16 2005
A reply: Con George-Kotzabasis
Ross Gittins with his piece in The Age has reached the dismal lows of his training as an economist. He digs, typically of his profession, and brings up statistics to make his “game” against the fear of terror. Like as if, the actions of fanatic terror could be gauged and explained by statistics.
He must have been temporarily impaired by a bout of aphasia when he wrote his article. Statistics are good in studying and comparing the normal and ordinary conduct of human or animal behavior, not the abnormal skewed behavior of either of the latter. Millenarian fanatic terror and the fear it produces upon its victims, does not fall under the category of normal behavior. Nor is it a “passing” sensation, as he claims. It’s an everlasting feeling that will not go away until its threat is considerably diminished, if not eradicated.
Moreover, one cannot quantify - as apparently Gittins attempts to do - the extent and volume of the threat by any scientific means, and least of all by statistics. The extent of the danger of global terror can only be measured by students of history who have distilled their knowledge from the sublime pages of Herodotus, the great Edward Gibbon, and Samuel Huntington, not to mention others for the lack of space, and by the power of imagination, attributes that are obviously missing from Gittins. Doesn’t he perceive or realize, that the present terrorist “mole-hill” threat could give birth to a mountain full of “mushrooms”? Doesn’t he perceive the exponential increase in casualties by a possible nuclear attack, once these zealots possessed nuclear weapons, which they would use with glee against the decadent West? Doesn’t he realize, that this is an existential struggle for Western civilization? And finally, does he seriously believe, that the Bush administration went to war, with all the uncertainties wars are replete with, and the great loss of lives and resources, for the purpose of saving a lesser number of American lives than those falling off from a ladder?
In the annals of Australian journalism, Ross Gittins’article will be forever pilloried for its analytical flippancy and intellectual banality.
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